Bad Memory
by broken mind
Summary: Resident Evil movie What if Chad Kaplan had made it out of the Hive? what if memories haunted him? what if the Umbrella Corp. can't let go of the only one who has survived the anti?


RESIDENT EVIL  
What if Kaplan had made it out of the Hive? Here are afterthoughts on the mission.  
Bad Memory  
Chad Kaplan laid on the bed, tugged in satin sheets and felt soft breathing next to him. Slowly he turned and watched her chest move up and down while she was breathing. It now had been four months after these horrible incidents in the depths of the Hive and still he had nightmares, although he took tranquilizers each and every night. Gladly, she hadn't woken up this time. She was always so concerned about him and yet she had never asked what he had seen there. She knew that there was something but she just hadn't asked.   
  
Now she twisted within his embrace and opened her blue eyes.   
"What are you thinking, honey?" she asked quietly and looked at him. She saw so much pain and trouble in his face and winced at the guessing.   
"Nothing..." he murmured and caressed her cheek. "It's nothing, cupcake."   
She smiled at his words and he knew that she loved it when he called her like that.  
After a while she spoke again. "Chad?"  
"Hmmm?"  
"What is it?" Her voice was as faint as a breath.  
"What is what?"  
"You know what I mean. Don't you try to make me believe nothing's troubling you. I see it day by day, you barely speak and I don't know what else...I can't take it anymore..."  
Kaplan turned to her and cocked his head. "I know..." he whispered.  
"Then why can't you tell me? I mean, don't you trust me?"  
"Oh Kayleigh, you probably wouldn't believe me if I told you how much I trust you."  
"But then why just can't you tell me what happened? You went straight into hospital and came back after a long time, and nobody told me anything! I would've killed just to find out what was going on. And then you came back and everything was cool again, or so you said..."  
  
Chad remembered those words, he had in fact told her that everything was just fine, although he had been through the worst hours and weeks of his whole life. He again glared at the woman next to him. Kayleigh McGregor, being the youngest and most inexperienced member of the team, had stayed home this very day. For any reason he was so relieved after what happened there that she wasn't with them, but he still blamed himself.  
Kayleigh, for her part, never got to know the truth about this mission. She wondered about why only Kaplan had come back, yet she knew she wasn't allowed to ask. Her hard training made her sometimes forget that she was only 26 years old and a girl.   
  
"I really wish that I was with you that day..." she said.  
"No!" Chad interrupted her with a sharp edge in his voice that made her wince. He grabbed her arm and jerked her upright. With a squeal of pain she yanked her arm free and backed away.   
"No..." he said again and regretted his action immediately. "I wouldn't have been able to cope with this as well."  
"Cope with what?" she asked carefully, she had never seen him that tensed before. "Chad...talk to me..."  
"I am sorry..." he sobbed and buried his face in his hands. "It was all my fault..."  
"What are you talking about..." Kayleigh didn't understand.   
"It was my fault that they all died. One was my friend and, and..." he lost his voice in a couple of chokes and sobs.   
"And what?" she wanted to know, although she already sensed what was had been going on. "Dead?" Realization came late.  
"Yes, all of them...and in the end I even lost Alice and Matt..."  
"But Matt died because of mutation in end-level. And Alice, no one knows where she is...what happened to the rest of the team?"  
"They didn't tell you, and I never dared to let you know the truth."  
"No, I somehow understand why you didn't. But those nightmares are eating you up, I feel it every day."   
Kaplan now winced under the soft stroke of her caressing hand and lifted his own hand to take hers.  
"Baby...you're gonna hate me..."  
"No! I could never hate you! Why should I?"  
"Because I am a wimp...I mean, I couldn't save them...I couldn't do anything but watch..."  
  
It took the good half of the night to tell his story and he cried more than just once. It was terrible enough to tell, but admitting mistakes in front of her was the hardest thing to do.  
"Chad, look at me..." she whispered when he had finished, wiping away some tears from his face. When he now lifted his eyes to meet hers, there was no trace of anger or anything else that he would have expected.  
"I am sorry..." he whispered, almost sure that she would just get up and leave.  
"You've got nothing to be sorry for. You did alright, you finished the mission and it was not your fault that the others died."  
"Yes it was!" he sobbed. "I made stupid mistakes."  
"You brought Alice and Matt back alive. You couldn't save Rain, Spencer and J.D., and One perfectly knew the risk. Everyone knew it. Even you…"  
„But it was my...my duty to check the systems..."  
"Is that why you never want to take me along on the missions?" she carefully asked.  
"Yes…" his answer came only hesitantly.  
"Now I understand…And I don't think you are a wimp. You succeeded in your mission, you did perfect, just as you were trained to do." Kayleigh tried to calm him down, the sobs were taking over.   
"I couldn't cope with losing you…" he whispered before he finally found back into a more peaceful sleep.  
  
Kayleigh watched him and sighed. He had a real bad memory sometimes, he kept forgetting to buy the most important things like milk or bread, but he couldn't forget about this. She had thought of this mission to be a little easier than what she had to do up to then. She already succeeded in finding out how much he remembered of the incident, but how was she going to make him forget everything? Umbrella paid so much to keep her and she wasn't really getting anywhere.  
He had been attacked by the zombies and got the shot of anti right in time, but to him things seemed the way they should be, although in reality, it was just all modelled up by the corporation. They even created a fake residence for the two of them, a fake place of work, a fake everything.   
Kaplan was their perfect subject of interest, for he blamed it all on himself. He was the only male ever to survive the infection, but he couldn't be examined the medical tests the normal way because he then would follow his natural instincts to find out what was going on. So that was when Kayleigh got into play. For her it was pretty easy to win his heart, she was attractive and exactly the type of girl Kaplan would hit on. And he did just what he was expected to. For now four months they've been a couple and now finally, she had made first discoveries that helped the Umbrella Corporation a lot. She now wouldn't be needed anymore. They would take Kaplan away into some well-protected hospital, even maybe back into the Hive to test him again and again.  
  
It was a job, she kept telling herself over and over, but the little feeling that had developed for the black-haired and brown-eyed man made her know better. She had fallen for him, too. The nights of wild sex and hot pleasure were as much wanted as the long conversations they had.  
Would there still be a life after this? Raccoon City had been completely destroyed and humanity was close to genocide, and deep inside her heart she knew that there wouldn't be anything for her to come to when this mission would be over.  
Again she looked at Kaplan who was now almost peacefully sleeping and smiled when she touched his face. He was the only real thing in her life, and she wouldn't be that stupid to give it up that easily. She already had the cameras work incorrect without anyone noticing, and when they would ask about this night, she would pretend that nothing had happened. She could have a bad memory, too.  
  
END 


End file.
